How NASA's Perseverance rover will send Martian rocks back to Earth for the first time ever By Sophie Lewis NASA's Perseverance rover completes Mars landing NASA's Perseverance rover successfully pulled off its hazardous landing on the surface of Mars — but more unprecedented challenges lie ahead. A decade from now, in 2031, it will be the first ever to send samples from the red planet back to Earth. The plan, known as Mars Sample Return, or MSR, involves three missions spanning the next 10 years. "The idea of bringing a sample back from Mars goes back decades," Ken Farley, the mission's project scientist, said in a statement earlier this month. "We are in a position now where if everything goes according to plan, samples will be coming back to Earth in 2031. That sounds like a long time, but this becoming a reality has always been 10 years away since I was in grad school. Now we are actually doing it."